Mike Marinoff and Palmer Lazarus (Green 56 Chev w/Blower) used to run against each other all the time until Marinoff built his Gas Dragster and Palmer built his Willy's.........Up until that time, the standard was to push the dragsters down to 1/2 track with the engine turning and the ignition off to clean any fuel out of the cylinders, they would then turn the cars around and push back towards the starting line and light the engines, then turn around again in the stageing area and finally pull up to the line and make a pass.....
Marinoff's Blown Gas Dragster was the first car to start right in the stageing area useing it's own starter with external batteries......Right after that the Grove put in a Roller Starting System (Like a Chassis Dyno) powered by a 283 Chevy engine to start the Fuel and Gas Dragsters and that saved a lot of time.......some weekends they would have 16 car Fuel fields.......I used to sit by the Roller setup and watch the cars start and smell the Nitro, after a while you could tell by the sound of the Exhaust whether the cars were running Lean of Rich............
Fun Times
Ken
